Kayla Lockington
Job List
Story Board
Treatment
A
Treatment
for 'Virus'
Prepared by Kayla Lockington for DSLproductions
23/06/2020
It is proposed that the film's duration will be between 2 minutes to 2 minutes and 30 seconds. The film was shot at a friends house where there was a lot of outdoor terrain, good for a thriller film where the bush and shadows created an unknown and mysterious atmosphere. It was perfect because there was an unsealed driveway where our supposed 'antagonist' was seen walking as if in a grungy house somewhere in an isolated location.
The film includes the following thriller conventions, a knife was used as a weapon in order to strike fear and alert the audience that some type of danger was about to arise. This heightened heart rates creating a high tense situation. We utilised the conventions of iconography by using blood and weapons. Blood was shown in our hand-to-hand combat scene as our villain slashes our ‘hero’s’ flesh. We did this to try and enforce the amount of danger that our characters were really in. Since our characters are both young it is as if they are teen spys on the run, this can grab the attention of our target audience as they almost wish they were the ones fighting a life of crime.
We decided to base our film off of the idea of a Jason Bourne type of film. After watching opening scenes from many spy/action films we decided to take different elements from a range of sources to create our idea of an ‘intense’ chase scene, we looked at the video game Outlast where the character is running away and having to hide behind objects and get away from the people hunting him.
This is an example of a high intensity chase scene where the character is having to literally fend for his life. The fast paced orchestral music in the background makes the situation worse, creating anticipation for what is about to happen next.
As we progressed through the year with our idea and story we had an implication as one of our team members left school. With that we had to go to our back-up plan which was to essentially shorten the film as the time for filming was pushed because we weren't able to complete what we were supposed to in the holidays. One of our main issues apart from time restraints was the actors and mobility of where we could go to film. We wanted to show a family type atmosphere where the virus gets spread but due to the shortage of actors/talent we have scratched that idea and our now doing a lengthened version of our title sequence where you will see short clips from the film almost acting as a trailer and the credits will play over the top.
We used the film called Contagion as a source of inspiration. Throughout the trailer we see short clips of the movie while also playing credits and rolling out the plot-line of the film.
We have looked at the film Contagion's trailer and that is the type of effect we want to go for where the credits play over the top of the film. We see snippets of the movie while also leading up to the plot/story-line, it shows us what is going to happen without revealing too much.
Our group had a minor set back as one of our team members has decided to leave school, due to this we have had to re-think our idea and shorten the original plot. Now instead of seeing the doctor go around infecting her family it will just be contained where you will see the infected wound but it will be covered up. It will then transition to a news reporter outside the North Shore Hospital who will be speaking about the rapid spread of the virus and how it has affected the general public. We have gained some extra help from people from other teams and Luci has kindly offered to help with our audio management.
Our film has three characters:
Character#1- Lewis
Lewis is the young man who has been infected with the virus, he is the first case in New Zealand but no one knows about it because of how well the doctor has kept it a secret. Due to the lack if education about the virus, no cure has been made which is why he is shown strapped to a bed in an unknown location (a hidden hideaway)
Character#2- Doc
The Doc is a young lady in her what seem to be mid 20's early 30's her goal is to find the cure to this virus then expose it to the world but the struggle to find the cure is what is keeping her from her moment in the spotlight. Without the antidote she is just some crazed scientist fathoming over a mythical disease that has never been heard of and has no cure.
Character#3- Keith Bailey (news reporter)
The news reporter will be seen speaking live from outside the North Shore Hospital where the virus has now infected millions after the doctor decided to try and hide the fleshy wound given to her by the already infected young man. This will give a bit more detail to the film as this is when it will say the virus symptoms and whether they have found the so longed for 'cure'.
Brainstorm
Location
We will hang a piece of string across the top banisters in order to create a washing line where we will hang a long white sheet over it in order to make our 'curtain' effect.
The brightness/lighting of the room didn't matter too much as we would be happy filming in night or day time. The double doors will most likely be closed during the filming process to block out sounds and other noises that may be heard through the boom pole.
Tarps will be placed on the floor to make the whole atmosphere look more grungy and distasteful as if our doctor/scientist is doing this in secret/illegally.
Due to implications with the location we have no had to change once again where we will be filming. Instead of the double classroom we will be filming in the salvation room which has now been converted into a filming studio. This was our last option in terms of where we could film as the verisimilitude of the film needs to be realistic. It will be a smaller space to work with but the lighting will be ideal as it will be dimly light with little to no background noise. For our curtain we will stick with the same concept in terms of just hanging a piece of ribbon across the ceiling and putting a white sheet over it. This will also set the scene of a low budget, secretive underground workshop.
